Yaaawwwwn, what's for dinner?

Ah the life of the unemployed... I'm sitting here this afternoon killing time on the computer and thinking about what sides to make with the flank steak I have marinating since last night. I'm not sure what's more disturbing; the shrinking bank account or the fact that I don't even feel like looking for work. I've been home for 2 weeks now and I've realized something: working sucks. For the first time since 1993 I don't have any work on the horizon and it feels oddly good. I've made a few calls and there may be some work happening in December but for now I'm sort of a house Dad. Hilary has a couple of projects going so I've been doing the bulk of Maña duty. For the most part it's been great but I wonder how long the current peaceful state of mind will last. Mariana has days where she's a complete angel. It usually coincides with a day when I'm chill and happy. Then when I have a short temper she's difficult to handle. Hmmm, no kidding right? You mean, she feeds off what I do?! Duh- but not always possible to chill out and be the good/happy-guy/fun Dad. Sometimes I'm the "fly off the handle Spaz Dad" who screams at her for running away when I say "go wash your hands please" or slams the table in anger when she throws her fork with the ravioli on the carpet. Then I have to chill out and apologize for freaking out and try to make her understand that I don't like it when she does that shit. Overall it's been an interesting and transitional time for us these past few months. What it's transitioning to I have no idea. All I know is that I've had a lot more time with Mariana and that's a good thing.

In the photo you may notice a slight distraction on Maña's face. That's because Sesame Street is on over my shoulder. Also the glistening thumb that was just in her mouth - a requirement when holding Teddy but that Pain in the ass Dad made her take out for the photo.

Two, please be over soon, thank you

Here's Mariana in her full glory making her "cheese face". Halloween was really uneventful this year. She's still too little to really get it. But boy is it fun for us to dress her up in humiliating costumes!

M is in the full blown "terrible two" stage and we're in the full blown "oh shit, what if our kid is becoming a brat" stage. She can have a hair trigger temper some days and some days she's fine and dandy. It can be incredibly aggravating. It can make you want to smack her. It can change to a big smile and loviness in an instant though and make you remember that people say it's just a phase that will pass. In the moment it can be so difficult to realize that. Hilary and I are constantly having to check each other. Some days it's obvious- one of us keeps getting mad while the other one is chill and steps in to diffuse the situation. Other days.... not so much, and that's when things get ugly. I've found myself yelling at M and getting petty over the dumbest things. "Sit in your chair until we all finish eating!!" Why does it matter? And really...who cares? She'll learn table manners eventually so why wig out over it now? Parenthood has revealed some ugly things within me but hopefully I'll learn a few things along the way and be a better man for it.

Mariana is a pretty cool chick. She ain't afraid of no creepy crawlies. Here she is in Sweden with some little crabs Andres caught. She had a ball playing with them. Her mother is determined to have her not freak out about bugs and other bug-like critters. She went so far as to buy her some plastic bugs. Then today we went to my friends house where she went right up to his 2 rottweilers like it was no big deal. The male weighs roughly 3 times her and was eager to play. She kept running around near him and he would chase her. He knocked her down a couple times but she kept going back. She's a tough chick.

Mariana and I were thumbing through the latest Sports Illustrated when we happened upon this photo by Danish Siddiqui. Pretty incredible huh? I paused on the page and Mariana says " Oh... my... God". Ha!

growing up

Mariana started preschool this week at the Co-op School in Brooklyn. We're very excited about this development. We dropped her off on the first day and she walked right in like she owned the place with nary a glance back to see if we were still around. It left us happy but maybe a little sad that she could ditch us that easily. Oh well, get used to it Papa, right?

Here's a belated picture from her birthday - a new (ghetto) twist on the birthday crown.

We did manage to squeeze in some fun over Labor Day weekend. Here Mariana paints Mommy's legs, nice. She also painted all over herself and generally had a blast at our friends house in upstate NY.

beach beauty

This chick keeps us going in times like these.

Welcome back! Now go home

There were 100 great moments from our vacation but tonight I must digress into my own wallowing for a moment. Today after 9 years at my place of employment, I was laid off. The only other time I've been let go from a job was when I was 16 yrs old. So on my 1st day back from our wonderful trip I lost my job. It was a tumultuous day and I'm still numb from it all. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that as I sit here I don't have a job. I don't have a place that I have to get up and go to tomorrow. I wish I could feel the liberation in that but at this moment I feel more ...well... blank. I'm trying to fight off panic, worry, and doubt. How about excitement, opportunity and enthusiasm? I guess I'm somewhere in between. Mariana, Hilary and I will have to make some changes in the coming months- maybe some huge changes- and that has me a bit spooked.

Mangoes and the Chicken Lady

We just returned from one of the best trips we've ever had. We stayed on the west coast of Sweden with 2 of the nicest people you'll ever meet and their 2 awesome children: Anna & Magnus and Andres & Jarie. They live in what felt to us like an idyllic fairytale setting at the end of a tiny street in a tiny town 10 minutes drive to the water. They have tons of room to run around, forests, 4 wheelers, they've got chickens, a deck, swing set, they've got Rock Band and Wasa bread - but more than anything in Sweden we enjoyed spending time with their family. Anna's Dad made us moose steaks for petes sake.We met while staying at the same hotel in Bogota while waiting for our paperwork to be completed. Andres and Jarie came from CRAN, the same organization as Mariana.

Mariana is often a sucker for the boys- especially Dads. So not only did she get to hang out with Uncle Carlo on this trip but she became quite attached to Magnus. She had a problem saying Magnus so she just called him "Mangoes". She sang a little happy "mangoes, mangoes" song and asked about him whenever he left the room.

They have a 30' sailboat and one day we all went out for a cruise. The coastline in that area is an archipelago of thousands of little islands and being on a boat is the perfect way

to explore. We stopped at this one island that had only an outhouse and 2 black sheep as its inhabitants. Anna made

a big pasta salad and

Magnus bought some

freshly smoked mackerel and mussels from a fisherman selling from the back of his boat (see picture). There was a nice sandy beach where the kids played in the water and fished for crabs. Mariana LOVED the water despite it feeling cold enough to skate on. Our gracious hosts had of course brought hot coffee and dessert so we could have a nice snack on the beach. "Fika" as it's known was a big deal on our trip as we pigged out daily. Again and again we were treated like royalty. We had that same feeling we often do about how very lucky we are. One night after the kids went to sleep we stayed up till 3 drinking Schnapps and exchanging stories. I'm always amazed at how people from different sides of the planet -us from the biggest city in the USA, them from a teeny tiny Swedish village -can have so much in common. Having adopted kids from Colombia seemed almost incidental as we drank and laughed at the same stupid shit.

Mariana had her little world turned upside down and we did our best to try to

appease her. Travelling with children I've learned can be quite a trying experience. A lot of rules

went out the window and basic survival mode as parents kicked in. You want to eat with your hands? You got it. Toys at the dinner table? Go for it. Running around with scissors? Have fun kid, just PLEASE please stop the screeching, screaming and whining. Andres and Jarie would sit at the table, halos floating gently above their heads and eat quietly of their vegetables or whatever else was presented to them. Mariana sat, or squirmed I should say, at the end of the table, the girl who had a few too many beers and yelled and cried and threw food and demanded things and made her parents run around like fools trying to please their master. It was a little embarrassing but probably our own fault for getting so worked up about it. Our hosts repeatedly said not to worry about it. It just made me wonder how we could have handled the situation better.

Before we left M already had an idea of what Sweden would be like. Anna had mentioned that they have chickens at their house. Well, the chickens didn't disappoint. It was a daily ritual to go to the chicken house to look for eggs. M did a crazy arm flapping running around in circles dance whenever we said we'd take her to the chickens. Than as soon as we were back inside- "Go to see the chickens? Please Daddy, go to see the chickens?"! I'll try to upload the video but blogspot is having trouble.

In the middle of the trip we drove across the country to the east coast to see Overkill play at the Getaway Festival in Gavle, about 2hrs north of Stockholm. M was very excited to see Uncle Carlo. She got to run around backstage and make people laugh, a big dollop of cuteness in a sea of black clad metalheads. We figured it was too loud for her to watch but thought that 1 song would be ok.

She looked a bit stunned as she watched the 1st song then Hilary took her backstage so I could watch the rest of the show. Well, M wouldn't have any of that and kept asking "go to see the loud Mommy". I knew she was cool.

family ride

Just a short video from our family bike ride a few weeks ago. I dusted off Hilary's bike, loaded up Mariana on mine with me and we rode over to the new-ish french pastry shop in our neighborhood. That's a baguette Mariana's chomping on as she rolls past the camerawoman. Mom and daughter perfected the crusty bread hand off while riding- pretty impressive. M had lots of fun, and she better learn how to fake it if not because if she doesn't grow up to love bicycling she'll be disowned. (ok, not true - only if she becomes a red sox fan)

Cave Girl

Mariana knows how to use a spoon. That doesn't mean that she always will. We were eating breakfast the other day and she put her fingers into her oatmeal to grab a blueberry. I said "Hey, use your spoon cave girl". She cracked up and started calling herself Cave Girl from then on. Even when she doesn't do something cave-like she'll say it. Cave Girl's funny.
We found out yesterday Cave Girl has tonsillitis. So she gets to sit in front of the tv and eat sorbet. She's very sad though. She has a fever and stuffy nose and is sleepy and lethargic. Poor thing, she even fell asleep during an Elmo video. I bought her a new video to give Hilary a break from watching Disney's "Bolt" for the 400th time. Apparently 5 minutes into it she asked for Bolt again. She's been doing A LOT of that kind of a thing. She'll ask for juice and then cry when you try to hand it to her. She asks for the Elmo video and then as soon as it's on asks for Bolt and then as soon as that's on she'll ask for Elmo again, each time crying unless immediate action is taken to satisfy her demands. Even when you hop right to it she'll cry. Basically I think she feels so crappy that nothing will make her happy.

Sometimes this parenting thing is hard. Really hard. The past few days with Mariana being so difficult tests us and challenges our beliefs about child rearing. Do we indulge her every request normally? No way, but when she's sick it's hard to know where to let things slide and where to stick to the rules. The more upset she gets the more you want to calm her down by giving in. After a while though you realize that giving in isn't working either. In fact her whole routine has been disrupted and she's not eating, not sleeping enough, and generally can't go 2 minutes without freaking out. So what's the answer? Stick to your rules and keep your routines - just let her cry through it all? or let her do whatever she wants and cry through it all anyway? I don't friggin' know. I just know that her waking up at 530 am instead of her usual 730 is making all of us cranky.

This video features MJV with her cousin Niko.

C'mon people!

I think we're getting into the "Guess what Mariana said" years now. I imagine there will be many of these. But ok, guess what she said while we were waiting in traffic at the Holland Tunnel? We were on the way to Poppy's house in NJ and I must have been muttering at drivers being stupid in traffic. She says from the back seat, "C'mon people". Ha! Ok, guess what else she said? We were playing hide and seek in the car and she was laughing a lot. She then says to me "You're funny Daddy!". Of course the dopey uncle/son/husband/brother in me beamed at this supreme compliment.

Hilary has been taking some classes on the weekends so I've had M all to myself. It's been great. I wish I could share all the little things she does that make me smile. This video is taken at our local playground. She was all fired up after our bike ride and when I put her down she just wanted to run in circles. That little hip wiggle shake is too damn funny.

This morning I gave Maña some dried blueberries after breakfast. I often count them out to her as a way to teach her numbers. Today she counted all the way to eleven on her own without any prompting. She's also starting to say thank you and please on her own too. And she's not even 2 until August. I'm relieved more each day because there isn't a doubt in my mind that she'll be in all the gifted and talented programs. Whew, I thought finding the right school was going to be tough but not when you know that she'll be at whichever is the best.

Maña has recently graduated from the high chair to a regular chair. Ok perhaps graduating is the wrong word. It would imply some skill set had been mastered or that a certain requirement of coordination was reached. Well in Mariana's case it was just a lot of whining/ screaming/ not eating crankiness that made us give up on putting her in there. Her mother fashioned this "booster seat" from a couple of clear bins and some packing tape. Some may call it ghetto style but I prefer to call it "Mommy-rigged".

ABC's

Mariana has a toy piano that her Auntie Christine bought for her. Usually she just bangs away with an open palm. She can hit more keys and create more racket that way. The other night as she was getting loopy before bedtime she started playing individual notes for the first time. She was also singing about bubbles, her favorite new discovery. It's the kind of noise that usually just fades into the background but this time I heard her start to sing "Tiny Bubbles" by Don Ho. I've sung this to her before but only a few times. I sung the next line to her- "in the wine..." which she followed up with the next line "makes me happy...." Are you kidding me?! She already knows it?! A father/daughter duet of Tiny Bubbles?! Sweet! Tiny Bubbles is a special song to me. We play it at work at the end of a very long day or at the end of a big project- often at 2 or 3am as we're wrapping up. So when I hear it it means I get to go home. To hear Mariana singing it was pretty cool. I went over and sat down with her and she started playing notes. I sang them back to her and she would laugh when I got it right. She would whine when I got it wrong. Does this kid have perfect pitch? Whoa, I don't know but she's amazing.
She can also sing the entire ABC's song by herself. We practice on the way to swim lessons on Saturday mornings. Swimming is going ok. M has a tendency to get distracted easily by all the other flailing children but does seem to really enjoy herself. She's even learning the Hokey Pokey -especially the "turn yourself around" part.

Slap Happy

Mariana gets a little slap happy as it gets close to bedtime. It's a toss up between getting her to wind down and egging on the silliness. Either way she's a good sleeper so it's not a big deal. That's when these videos are taken. Note how much bigger she is in relation to that purple ball from past videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npHat9q9qhM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjVg3HBg26Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yp_Og76Iv0Q (on the ball)

Easter 2010

I'm too tired and stressed out about whether or not I'll get laid off to write these days. here are a few recent photos.

Mariana is learning to take off her shirt consistently lately. Socks have long been a favorite for self removal. The other day she took her socks off and put them in my slippers.

Today was Easter and Mariana was dressed girly girl again. Here she is with her Auntie Christine and her new pet manatee (yeah right sea cow) Later on we went to Queens and Maña and I killed time in the car while Mommy did some shopping. She turned the hazards on and off, the blinkers, the radio, and turned any knob she could get her hands on. Guess what happened when we went to start the car? yeah, dead battery, oy.

Girly girl

Most of Mariana's clothes are pretty basic - built for comfort and rolling around on the (not so clean) floor. So when she puts on an outfit like this I have to take videos.

Swimming

This past Saturday Mariana and I had our 1st swim lesson at the Bed Stuy YMCA. It was a little chaotic because there is only 1 "family" locker room. It was nice and quiet on the sign up tour but packed on swim day, go figure. I'll be dressing us at home from now on.
Everyone is required to wear a swim cap in the pool and I thought this would be an issue for M. I bought the caps a few weeks ago and had been trying to get her to try it on in the bathtub since. She has not been amused. I hoped that once we were by the pool and she saw the other kids with them that she'd get over it. There was so much activity by the pool that the swim cap turned out to be the least of her concern. Kids, parents, instructors, coaches, swim team members- the place was busy and M wanted to stay close, very close. That's one of the fringe benefits of taking her to something new; lots of cheap hugs for Daddy. They sectioned off part of the pool for our group and once we got in the water it was all too much and she started crying. I tried to distract her by telling her much fun she was having. We were led through introductions and few songs and I bounced around trying to pacify her. I started to think about quitting the pool for the day if she didn't enjoy it- after all that was the whole point. Slowly she stopped crying and tolerated some of the spinning and splashing. By the end she had relaxed enough to kick a little and point out the babies swimming next to her. It gave me hope that next week she'll be more into it.

One Year in the books

Tomorrow, March 4th is the 1 year anniversary of our meeting Mariana and taking the reigns as parents. Overall I find it an agreeable situation. I hope she does as well. Outwardly she's doing very well but now that she understands so much we have to start introducing the idea of adoption the her. It would be easier to just roll along and act like everything is as it seems; ie we're her parents. Of course that's true but there's more to the story and it should be a part of her earliest memories.
We've now interviewed 5 babysitters and hired 2. Bianca we let go after a week and a half because we found Marcela. I felt a little sleazy about it but Marcela just seemed like the better fit. First of all she's from Bolivia and speaks Spanish. Plus she's familiar with the neighborhood and knows the playgrounds and library play groups . She's also a mother herself and said she'd closely follow whatever routines we have for Mariana. Besides, Mariana seemed to like her more than the others right off the bat. We called one babysitters reference and the woman said she was surprised to hear that she'd been given as a reference because she had fired the woman the week before. Apparently they came home to find her asleep on the floor and it took three times calling to her to rouse her. Yikes.
We're starting to look at pre schools which really makes me feel like an adult. Believe it or not, almost a year into this adventure, I still feel like a kid acting like a grown up. In New Providence there was 1 public school option and that's where you went. In Brooklyn there are tons of options, public and private but the best options often have waiting lists and lottery systems to get in- and we're talking about pre schools here, forget about K-12 for now.

Mariana has recently been trying to sing along to her three favorite songs: "Rock a bye baby", "Twinkle twinkle little star", and "Take me out to the ball game". She's starting to string words together and sing them at the appropriate times. It's pretty cool. Hmmm, what else? She's starting to draw so her mother and I are being careful not to encourage the art curse too much. "It's only nice as a hobby dear". She's makes requests and always asks us to draw cats. She is picking up our expressions like "here you go" even if they're a little jumbled still. "Here you go Mommy" becomes "See go Mommy, see go Daddy". She's also started shortening Mommy and Daddy to Mom and Dad. Where the hoot did that come from?! (By the way, our curse curbing is starting to work, making us sound like nincompoops)

Maña

Mariana has 4 syllables. That can be a mouthful when your mouth is only 18 months old. So Mariana has adopted her friend Chandra's pronunciation. Chandra who is 2 1/2 started calling her Maña (pronounced Manya) because I think it was a little easier for her to say. We thought about Mari or Ana but Maña seems to be the nickname that's sticking. It's how she refers to herself anyway. Here are Maña and Chandra sipping yogurt.

She doesn't like to eat very much. She has a tendency lately to say "all done" as soon as she sits down in fact. Or maybe I should say that she whines it with anguish in her voice. She's in that stage where she'll ask for something to eat, say cereal, then reject it after 1 bite or maybe no bites at all. She can say a lot, but she still can't explain herself. I think half the time she doesn't even know what she wants, just that she don't want to sit in the chair and eat when there are crayons to lick or toy bins to be dumped over. And now that I mention it, she loves to dump over bins. Is it just to make a mess? Seemingly, but then that's the parental way to look at it. To her it could be just another learning experience. I want her to grow up to be a person who cleans up after herself or just as importantly, to know what a mess even is but I want her to learn how to make a mess first.
I get the same feeling watching her color in a coloring book. My hyper anal job makes me want to always color inside the lines. Mariana could care less about the lines already there, wantonly scribbling back and forth just to torture me and poke at my OCD. The truth is that I want her to know the "rules" and then to put them aside and make her own rules.

And thanks for the encouragement folks. Mom's 70th birthday was yesterday and there's already so much to tell her.

Oy

I have been wanting to write but just not feeling it these days. Hopefully someone is still reading. Mariana yields more stories every day but life intervenes. Oy. Believe it or not having my Mom pass away took some of the motivation out of it for me. This blog was a way for me to tell her stories that I knew she could relate to but I wouldn't necessarily remember when we spoke. I know others are reading occasionally too but I'll always think of her when i'm writing.

Mariana is constantly getting colds. Sometimes her nose runs but she doesn't know how to blow yet. Sometimes she's just clogged and needs a little saline shot up her nose to loosen things up. This is what's known in our house as a "spritz". Then we have to use the "nasal aspirator" or as we call it, the booger ball. Affectionately known as a "spritz and a suck" - it's definitely not her favorite activity (or ours) but it does help so it must be done. The other day I sat her on my lap, gave her a spritz and then took out the booger ball. She looked at it and sighed and said "oh boy".

A New Year

It's been hard to get back into writing again. Once too much time goes by, there's too much to tell about all the little things that Mariana does to amaze and astound.

We went to visit Grandma and Grandpa Carlson in Florida over the New Years holiday. Mariana has officially nicknamed them "Gummy and Paka". Where those names come from I have no idea but that's what she's going with. Paka won big points by always having pretzels at the ready and Gummy giggled away as Mariana ran around in circles for her amusement. It was warm enough the first couple days we were there so were able to go to the beach. M was then obsessed with it thereafter, even when it 45 degrees. Agua! Agua! Agua! anytime we passed a body of water. It's convenient that she loves the beach because we do too.

Recent milestones:

Reaching up and opening doors

Talking more everyday and starting to repeat without prompting
Pulling off her own socks
Putting things in the garbage, including stuff that doesn't belong there
Understanding "please"
Her first fat lip thanks to a wipeout on the kitchen floor
Requesting a song to be played for her ad nauseum- the current obsession is "The Hello Song" from the Putumayo cd

Mariana got multiple sound producing toys for Christmas. There is a dog that sings Christmas songs and a sheep that plays a banjo and sings "Thank god I'm a country boy". As you can see in this youtube video below she wants them played continuously and in unison from the time she gets up until she goes to bed including when she eats. She also anticipates when they are going to turn off and asks for us to turn them on again before they even stop, lest one second should pass without a racket. And to add insult to injury she makes US press the on button even though she knows perfectly well how to do it herself. It's just the beginning, I know, I know...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdH5mCX7-I

see this picture of my beautiful wife and daughter, happily on the plane ride home